Cuddle Party
24 December 2025 00:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithWe have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!
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Poem: "The Right Combination of Features"
23 December 2025 23:20ysabetwordsmith![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "Experimentation" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.( Read more... )
Poem: "No Matter How Morally Unworthy"
23 December 2025 23:05ysabetwordsmithmama_kestrel and see_also_friend. It also fills the "Violent Behavior" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.( Read more... )
Distant as a dream of the cradle on this lonesome beach
23 December 2025 23:25sovayI spent a remarkable portion of this day having conversations related to employment, but one of them was a thorough delight. I hadn't known about the practical, ritual links of the Jewish Association for Death Education.
We lit the candle for my grandfather's yahrzeit, our ghost story for Christmas Eve.
Poem: "Happy Instruments of Salvation"
23 December 2025 22:45ysabetwordsmithgothfvck and see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.( Read more... )
(no subject)
23 December 2025 18:22ravena_kadeDad's phone is not accepting calls from my phone or my sister or my cousins... and when the cousins and sis can't get him they call me... sigh. Tonight I am. trying to walk home and the pacemaker doctor calls me and while he is talking about cutting the dosage on the rare expensive med my phone is beeping because sis and 3 cousins are all calling me within 3 minutes.
I have tried calling 3 times in his room to discuss what the doctor said, but he won't pick up the phone. He's probably sitting there going ... gee what is that noise that sounds like a phone....
Fruitcake
23 December 2025 16:12ranunculusThis fruitcake is incredibly rich and yummy. I got it from my Mom, who undoubtedly clipped it out of a newspaper or farm magazine. I note that it is up on Cooks.com these days.
California Fruitcake
3/4 Cup Flour We always used all purpose white flour.
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Soda
1 tsp Salt
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar Pack tightly into measuring cup.
1 1/2 Lbs Pitted Dates Mom used brown Medjool Dates common to Calif. I like to cut them in half.
1 1/2 to 2 Cup Dried Apricots Cut into halves or quarters. Pack tightly in measuring cup.
3 Cup Nut Meats (Walnut halves) in large pieces.
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
Mix all dry ingredients.
Add to fruit, coat fruit thoroughly with flour mix.
Beat eggs until foamy, add vanilla.
Pour Egg mix over dry ingredients & fruit. Gently stir in.
Line loaf pan (bread loaf pan) with wax paper or parchment paper.
Pack pan with mix.
Bake at 300 degrees 1 hour and 20 min.
Put small pan of water in oven with the fruitcakes while baking to help keep it moist.
When cool, wrap with tinfoil and store in a dark cool place for 4 to 6 weeks to blend flavors. Or eat immediately.
Storing give a much richer flavor. We tried it soaked in rum once, and never again. The flavors of this fruitcake are so rich that the alcohol dulled and muddied the taste.
Signal Boost: Someone else's comments on bad science
23 December 2025 12:01arlieDoes adolescence really last until age 32?
Capsule summary: comparing brain scans of individuals at different ages doesn't tell you very much about aging. For that, you need brain scans of the same individuals at different ages. also, "convenience samples" of people who just happen to have been scanned are unlikely to tell you as much as you think about the general population.
The study cited was published in something call Nature Communications, which is presumably unrelated to the well-regarded scientific journal Nature.
See also the same blogger's Are We Really Aging in Bursts?.
End of year meme
23 December 2025 19:46cosmolinguistI started introducing it this way in 2023:
The questions here sometimes feel random and sometimes aren't very relevant to me (how many one-night stands, bless; that feels like such a fossil of the height-of-LJ days when I first encountered this meme), but I do like it as a way to think a bit differently than I normally do about my life, and some things that had a big impact on me (like what a dog-hospital year it was for Gary) barely show up here. I do find myself at random points through the year noting things I do that I haven't done before, or wondering what my musical discovery might be, or whatever.
So here we go for 2025
1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?:
Wrote an extensive as the writer and basically project lead on a report at work -- never did this before, did it three times in a row this year.
Met a person from the internet and ended up having sex with them the same day. (Sorry if this is tmi, there will be no more details about it.)
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?:
I didn't call it a resolution but when asked later about what I'd like to have this year that I lacked the previous one, I said
Another sexual and/or romantic partner? This feels impossible but so do the last four years' worth of things and they all happened!
Like three days after I wrote this I started talking to somoene on the social media site that's basically a kinky version of Facebook which, like regular Facebook, you can only access if you have an account and I was getting memes and events linked to by a friend until I got fed up and made an account. Six months later, I got a random message from someone who wrote a comment that I'd "liked" (as with Facebook, it tells you when people like your shit and then you can go look at their profile and all that) and in August I met him and it was fun to have a no-strings arrangement with a friend.
Will I make more for next year? I'm not sure, I think the coming year is more about keeping what I have stable: work, house, relationships, friendships, life....
( +47 )
50. What are your plans for 2026?
Laat year I wrote
Try to help everyone survive it with as much comfort and joy as we can manage, especially in the U.S. but everywhere really.
And I don't think I can improve on that answer either.
In a lot of ways it's been a rough year: the quick and steep decline of human rights in the U.S. has been hard to watch and harder to be affected by so personally. Work has been so difficult. I've had such a miserable experience trying to get referred for top surgery -- in the process bringing up so much medical fatphobia that I haven't even blogged about the whole saga, I can barely even think about it without panic or tears. Even my escapist hobby of MLB has been reminding me that billionaires feel
But in other ways it has also been a good year: it was really nice to be able to provide a safe landing place for angelofthenorth and Mr Smith, it was nice to get through a November without anything (new) and terrible happening. Connections with the local queers have been deepened and I'm delighted that D and I are now on the small committee of people who've taken over from the two founders who have reasonably been able to step back and enjoy the thing they made as the ordinary attendees the rest of us have gotten to be the last two years.
Update on my medical woes
23 December 2025 19:35andrewduckerNo idea why that didn't happen the first time!
Birdfeeding
23 December 2025 13:30ysabetwordsmithI fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I filled the trolley twice with twigs from the parking lot brushpile, then dumped them in the firepit in the ritual meadow.
I saw a flock of mourning doves in the trees around the ritual meadow.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit.
I've seen a fox squirrel running through the trees. I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.
EDIT 12/23/25 -- I dumped another trolley of sticks in the firepit. I think I've actually removed all the ones with berries that I want to burn, so the rest should be free for other uses.
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
Another Horror Bundle - Old Gods of Appalachia
23 December 2025 19:08ffutureshttps://bundleofholding.com/presents/Appalachia
I'm not really into horror much at the moment, but it's cheap, nicely presented and looks like a playable system. Mostly the mythology it draws on originates from Native American tribal sources and European legends. Since this is largely inspired by a podcast series I'm linking to it below, it might be worth checking it out before you decide if you want to buy.
https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/
Political Rant.....
23 December 2025 11:19disneydream06I have been LMAO lately at the rapper Nicki Minaj running around being a great big ole MAGA.
Kissing up to Charlie Kirk's widow.
Praising the Fearful Leader.
My first thought was, He could care less about you.
In fact he would probably more then happy to kick your butt out of the country because you aren't a pretty little blonde white girl.
Now this morning are just read the WTF LMAO part of the story.....
Nicki Minaj is an "Illegal" Immigrant.
She came here when she was 5 years old and has never gotten her citizenship.
Dear Ice.....